The present invention relates to a door structure for a vehicle.
In general, conventional vehicle doors have an assembled structure of outer and inner panels, a door window pane of glass, a window regulator, an interior trim member and other components. The inner panel is formed with access holes of various sizes large enough for screw fasteners or tools to be inserted for assemblage.
In such a conventional technique, the components are assembled in a predetermined sequence of steps, and with the progress of the assembly process, it becomes difficult or infeasible to tighten screw fasteners or perform other operations from the inside of the door. Therefore, more access holes are required and the operations becomes more difficult and troublesome.
In the conventional process in which components are assembled individually and independently, moreover, it is not possible to adjust the open and closed positions and movement of the window pane until almost all of the components have been assembled, and the adjustment of the window pane is difficult because consideration must be given to the positional error of each associated component which is independently attached. In the conventional technique, moreover, the adjustment of the window pane is performed on the basis of the geometry of the outer panel. Therefore, variation in shape and dimension of the outer panel tends to adversely affect the accuracy of adjustment of the window pane, necessitates corrective adjustment of the window pane, and complicates the assembly process.
In some conventional door structures, the interior trim member is fastened to the inner panel with a bolt inserted through a bolt hole formed in an arm rest of the interior member. This bolt joint structure restricts the freedom of design of the inner panel.
In another conventional example, a reinforcing member is fastened to front and rear ends of outer or inner panel with bolts extending in the fore and aft direction of the vehicle. This structure is disadvantageous in rigidity especially against torsional deformation of the door, and the tightening of the longitudinally extending bolts exerts an undesirable force tending to deform the longitudinally extending reinforcing member.
Some conventional vehicle door structures are disclosed in NISSAN service bulletin No. 578, page B-30, Japanese Utility Model Provisional Publication No. 61-125817, and Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 59-34923.